


Not Another Superhero First Date

by crinklefries



Series: Not Another Avengers Romantic Comedy [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Adventures of One Bored Millennial Municipal Employee, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Crack Treated Seriously, First Dates, Fluff and Humor, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Loki and Bucky Best Friend Tour, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Millennial Bucky Barnes, Minor Loki/Thor (Marvel), Post-Avengers (2012), Shrunkyclunks, Temporary Amnesia, Tony Stark Is Not Helping, Voicemail, extremely bad Grindr dates, gay but necessary internal monologues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25075543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crinklefries/pseuds/crinklefries
Summary: Bucky Barnes is dating Captain America.Well okay, in full disclosure, Bucky Barnes istryingto date Captain America. In between the alien invasions, the rips in space and time, the absconding of Thor just when the Avengers needed him the most, and the Red Wedding—which Bucky is still working to process, with the help of two message boards, his 162 Twitter followers, and therapist—it isn’t going particularly successfully, but heistrying. He has, at a minimum, gotten Steve Rogers to give him his phone number and, on occasion, even reply back to Bucky using an appropriately selected emoji.The problem isn’t the will, or even the lack thereof, of two persons—one a millennial municipal employee with amazing hair and legs for days, and one, superhero, supersoldier, and the human manifestation of golden fucking retriever—the problem is well, Bucky gestures vaguely at the circumstances around them.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Not Another Avengers Romantic Comedy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816012
Comments: 105
Kudos: 438
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mambo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Captain America!!!! 
> 
> This fic was specifically requested by mambo, who needed to Know More about municipal employee Bucky Barnes and his inability to secure a proper date with Steve Rogers and also bid on me for Fandom Trumps Hate like 700 years ago. Sorry for the delay, mambo! I hope this will be an amenable placeholder until l get to Gossip Gays. 
> 
> **A note:** this is the "second part" in the _Not Another Avengers Romantic Comedy_ series, but there's no real need to read the first part to this series if you don't want to. It'll provide a little bit of a context and personally I think it's hilarious, but this can very much be read on its own. 
> 
> _Things you need to know:_ Bucky is a thotty municipal employee and his best friend, Loki Laufeyson, got himself into a green card marriage to literal alien and Norse God Avenger Thor. 
> 
> Also to my readers for whom English is not your first language, I am so sorry about all of the dramatic run-on sentences. Truly, I am. ♥

Bucky Barnes is dating Captain America.

Well okay, in full disclosure, Bucky Barnes is _trying_ to date Captain America. In between the alien invasions, the rips in space and time, the absconding of Thor just when the Avengers needed him the most, and the Red Wedding—which Bucky is still working to process, with the help of two message boards, his 162 Twitter followers, and therapist—it isn’t going particularly successfully, but he _is_ trying. He has, at a minimum, gotten Steve Rogers to give him his phone number and, on occasion, even reply back to Bucky using an appropriately selected emoji.

The problem isn’t the will, or even the lack thereof, of two persons—one a millennial municipal employee with amazing hair and legs for days, and one, superhero, supersoldier, and the human manifestation of golden fucking retriever—the problem is well, Bucky gestures vaguely at the circumstances around them.

“Seriously,” Bucky says, into the voicemail. “Where the fuck are you? What the fuck use is a best friend if he’s somewhere in outer space without appropriate access to wifi and never checks his WhatsApp message? Do you get WhatsApp on Asgard? Hello? _Hello_?”

The voicemail recording system cuts him off, which is just as well, because he was about to go on another five minute rant about the trials and tribulations of trying to date a superhero, not that his so-called best friend had presumably bothered to even listen to the _first_ five minute rant he had gone on...the last ten times he had left messages for him.

Bucky sighs and puts his phone away.

He imagines that if he had a voiceover to the story of his life, it would go something like this: here is Bucky Barnes, age mumble mumble, a lowly paid city employee, with an ass that won’t quit and a best friend who married a literal Norse God and fucked off to space for who knows how long, slowly and brutally dying of a painful crush on and distant angst with America’s favorite superhero, who has his number, but cannot seem to find a two hour block in his superhero schedule to dress in something that accentuates his supersoldier cleavage and grab a fucking drink.

In Bucky’s most intimate imagination, the story of his life is narrated by like, Hugh Jackman or Russell Crow or someone who holds an equal weight of gravitas and respect, but as he glumly looks at the calendar he has boarded to the wall of his shitty Brooklyn apartment and crosses out yet another potential date with Steve Rogers, Captain America, the truth comes to him, clearly and undeniably: if Bucky Barnes had a voiceover to the story of his life, it would almost certainly be narrated by Michael Cera.

“I hate my life,” Bucky Barnes says out loud. Michael Cera could probably relate.

*

It happens like this. Or, more accurately, it doesn’t happen, like this.

Bucky texts Steve asking him to get a drink at a bar he knows near his shithole Bushwick apartment; the bar itself is only partly shithole and sometimes has live music. He doesn’t know if Captain America listens to music or if music had been invented during his childhood in the Cretaceous Period, but if he doesn’t, then that’s what the alcohol and the tight leather pants are for.

Steve says that he would love to get a drink, but he’s in Kosovo through Thursday and Friday he has a movie night at the Tower that would be nearly impossible to convince Tony Stark is an optional group activity.

On Saturday, Steve texts Bucky asking if he would like to get coffee at a new coffee shop that he’s discovered in Park Slope because it’s a rare sunny day in February and nothing says I want to take you home and slam you against a grimy Brooklyn window with metal bars outside of the screen like a $6 oat milk latte and a $5 blackout donut imported from Doughnut Plant. Actually, Bucky would definitely let Captain America suck his dick for a donut from Doughnut Plant, but that’s neither here nor there.

Unfortunately, Bucky has to take a shift at his local food co-op—which he had only joined by virtue of being drunk one night and far too susceptible to Wanda’s large, brown eyes and needling about the communal good—and he knows he’ll smell too much like vegetables and sweat for any welcome activities after.

Bucky suggests Sunday, but Steve responds, apologizing and saying that he had already told Sam Wilson he would help him move from his native D.C. to Steve’s native Brooklyn, which, incidentally, is also why he’s also out for Monday and probably Tuesday too.

The next week is hardly any better, owing to a strange confluence of a wide variety of bizarre events occurring in the following order: Bucky loses Wednesday to a fight with his local USPS, which keeps insisting it’s delivered his Amazon package full of extremely necessary and moderately overpriced hair products when it _hasn’t_ and leading him on a tri-borough goose chase that ends with him sprawled in exhaustion and defeat across his couch at 9 pm, without package and certainly without his will to live; Steve is busy on Thursday and Friday because of an unanticipated invasion of giant, floating neon-colored murder jellyfish; on Saturday, Bucky has to risk life and limb and—most importantly—dignity to take the Long Island Railroad out to fucking _Huntington_ for his baby sister’s 21st birthday; and on Sunday, they’re both so tired from the murder jellyfish and the LIRR and Bucky’s general gloom over how the overpriced Amazon hair products had _not_ worked for him, that neither even suggest meeting up, they just text a few rounds before deciding to separately watch A League of Our Own simultaneously on Prime Video.

They do FaceTime through the movie because Bucky is a millennial who is deathly allergic to phone calls, but can muster up the energy for a video conference if his hair is cooperating. His hair is _not_ cooperating, to be clear, but he also needs to make sure that Captain America does not fucking forget what’s on the table here, so he changes into the tightest black t-shirt he owns and does some half-assed coiff and settles in with a bottle of beer and a healthy bowl of strawberries which Bucky only bought and is only eating because they will stain his lips just red enough for his very specific purposes.

“Does this count as a date?” Steve asks hesitantly as they hit play at the same time.

“No,” Bucky says, flatly. “That’s lame. We’re not lame.”

“Okay,” Steve says, reasonably. “Then what is it?”

“Two dudes, hanging out, watching Tom Hanks coach a group of baseball women to victory,” Bucky says and stares pointedly at his bowl. “While eating fruit. Obviously.”

“And that’s not a date?” Steve asks.

“Correct,” Bucky says.

“Are you going to cry?” Steve grins.

“Shut up,” Bucky grumbles and settles back onto his couch. “Tom Hanks is America’s sweetheart.”

“That doesn’t answer my questio—” Captain America, the annoying little shit, starts, but Bucky flaps a hand sexily to shut him up.

Steve listens, but his listening is apparently contingent only on the infuriating, smug grin that appears across his face. It’s horribly sexy. It does things to Bucky in areas that are not currently on FaceTime, thank god.

Bucky ignores all of this and angrily eats strawberries.

  
He does, of course, cry.

“I knew it,” Captain America says, with another awful smirk.

“Your eyes are red,” Bucky says, looking the extremely handsome asshole dead in his watery eyes. “Your face is wet. I _heard_ you sob when Tom Hanks—”

“Anyway, I have to go, this was fun!” Steve says, grinning and waving. “Bye!”

The line goes dead, leaving Bucky and his strawberry-stained lips scowling at a dark screen.

He throws his empty plastic bowl across the room and little green strawberry stems go scattering everywhere.

“ _Goddamn Captain America!_ ” Bucky Barnes shouts into the empty walls of his matchbox Bushwick studio apartment.

Then, grumbling, he goes to clean up the mess.

*

> _You have reached the voicemail box of Loki Laufeyson. I will almost definitely not get back to you, not because of any failing on my part, but undoubtedly many on yours. You can still leave a message if you want, I guess. I won’t be answering._

  
“Yeah, I fucking _know_ , asswipe,” Bucky grumbles into the phone. “I know because I listen to your goddamned voicemail every single time I call, which is constantly, by the way, not that I have heard back from you once. Thor’s dick could not possibly be good enough for you to forget about me and I do _not_ forgive you, but my life continues to be shit and Wanda is not _at all_ sympathetic and the last time I tried to tell Lang about my love life all I got for my efforts was three and a half minutes of him admiring Steve’s blue eyes and then showing me some Angelfire website he made for Captain America when he was in middle school.”

He takes a long, much-aggrieved breath.

“That is to say I have no one in my life I can count on and you’re the worst person I know, obviously, since you abandoned me for like, life in space, but I swear to god, Loki, this shit is so dire, I am going to literally die if I don’t get Captain America’s d—”

> _  
> Thank you. Your message will be sent to Loki Laufeyson. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

Well that whole attempt is a bust, so Bucky mopes his way through the rest of the month, mainlining early 90s and mid-2000s romcoms starring Julia Roberts and Drew Barrymore and Melissa Joan Hart while working his way through the entire collection of Ben & Jerry’s core ice creams and ranking them in a running spreadsheet in his head, like a real cool guy. He goes to work and comes home and spends up to two weeks looking through every cat adoption listing from his local shelter before falling in love with a three year old domestic shorthair tuxedo cat with a weird, tiny black mark on his nose named Montgomery who likes to play fetch and is “very good with people.”

Bucky takes a screenshot of Montgomery and shows him to all of his coworkers, who indulge him for the obligatory three minutes of _oh he’s so cute!_ and _you should definitely get him!_ and _what a good boy!_ before getting bored and drifting back to their own cubicles to continue online shopping while on taxpayer dollars.

The exception to this is Wanda, who can’t escape Bucky or his screencap of Montgomery—who, to be clear, Bucky has not actually adopted yet or made any moves to adopt—because he’s hovering over her desk where she’s attempting to parse through data on municipal noise complaints per New York City borough.

At some point she sighs and minimizes her screen and then, as Bucky is complaining about how he’s going to become a cat lady if he doesn’t secure a date soon, pulls up Google and after a few clicks is navigating onto TMZ’s website.

“What is that?” Bucky says, successfully interrupted. “What are you doing?”

“You are talking so much,” Wanda says. “I can’t concentrate.”

“Hey,” Bucky says as Wanda clicks into the tag labeled _Steve Rogers_. “No. I protest.”

“Is he growing a beard?” Wanda asks, leaning closer to her monitor.

“No,” Bucky says, dismayed. He puts his phone away. “ _No_. That’s a lie. I won’t allow that.”

“It looks like a beard,” Wanda says. She clicks an article full of pictures and enlarges one of them. “It’s in the beginning stages. We’re maybe one week, two weeks in. How long has it been since you have tried to get into his pants?”

“I didn’t do that,” Bucky lies. He shoves his face closer to the monitor, which makes Wanda frown at swat at him. Bucky sucks in a breath. “What is _that_? Oh my god.”

Wanda clicks into the link in question and when the pictures enlarge, Bucky is faced with something from his darkest nightmares; an image so terrible and haunting that his deepest fears could not have conjured such a horrible set of circumstances.

“Oh, wow,” Wanda says.

Bucky lets out a little shriek near the back of his throat, which causes three other co-workers to look over at the two of them in concern.

“How many puppies did they give him?” Wanda asks. “That’s three...four...oh no, there’s a video.”

“I’m going to die,” Bucky announces loudly, not caring who hears him. “When they do an autopsy of my body, let the coroner know that Captain America killed me.”

“Shush,” Wanda says and hits Bucky on the shoulder. It’s hard enough that it smarts and he yelps before glaring at her and rubbing the sore spot. “He is really very cute. Oh look, the puppies like him! Is that a baby golden retriever?”

Bucky lets out a whimper that is not completely appropriate for a workplace.

“Don’t close your eyes, like a coward,” Wanda scolds him. “You will look at this large, handsome blond man with blue eyes and biceps the size of hubcaps holding seven small puppies in his arms or you will stop whining and ask him out on a date again.”

“I don’t want to do either of those things,” Bucky says.

Wanda points at a particularly large and cute picture of Steve, wearing a thick cable knit sweater, giving the tiny golden retriever a kiss on its tiny, wet black nose.

Bucky wants to die. He makes a mental note to save that picture to his phone later.

“Fine!” he says. “Fine, I’ll try again, but if he rejects me and breaks my heart and I’m broken into a million tiny pieces of the person formerly known as Bucky Barnes, know that I _will_ haunt you until you adopt Montgomery and we live in a human-ghost-cat sitcom that NBC would pick up and cancel after two seasons.”

“I stopped listening to you after you said fine,” Wanda says. She closes TMZ and pulls her data spreadsheet back up.

  
Bucky grumbles, pained and overcome by the mental image of Steve with tiny creatures, before slinking across the hallway and back to his cubicle.

In three minutes’ time, he receives a text message.

He opens it, heart beating a little, hoping that it’s Steve.

It isn’t.

> **From:** Wanda Maximoff
> 
> For your records :)

  
Bucky doesn’t yell and throw his phone halfway across the room, but it’s honestly a very close call.

He saves the picture anyway.

*

By the time the two of them find a Thursday evening that works for them both, Steve has grown a full beard. He just shows up to their nice rooftop dinner with that thing on his face and sparkling blue eyes and a tight shirt that’s pulled over his barrel chest and a leather jacket fit to bursting at his biceps and Bucky takes a whole breath and clenches his fists. He’s overcome. He’s so angry. It’s fucking awful.

“What have you done,” Bucky says, glaring up at his superhero date and Steve just gives him a lightly bemused look.

“Hi Buck,” he says, brightly. “I like your hair.”

It’s exactly what he had said to Bucky all of those months ago and Bucky hates him for it. But also, he’s glad that Steve noticed. He had spent a good two hours and half a dozen non-Amazon products to get his curls to really pop and set just so and he’s too gay for that to go unnoticed.

“Thanks. I’m hungry,” Bucky announces, very casually. He tries to lean against a short wall with flowers and vines hanging over the top and misses.

“Oh,” Captain America says, with thoughtful concern and catches him by the arm. His one, enormous, firm hand encircles Bucky’s bicep almost entirely and Bucky’s brain internally shrieks. “Are you all right?”

Steve is trying to look him in the eyes, his brows knit in the center, and if that beard comes even one inch closer to Bucky’s face, Bucky will not and cannot be held responsible for anything he does, legally, in a court of law.

“Let’s get oysters,” he says instead and shoves Steve’s giant shoulders toward the hostess.

  
They’re seated on the terrace under heat lamps, next to a fake hedge that makes the setting appear intimate, but lush. Bucky drags the whole bowl of free, fresh bread to him and takes a wedge to slather in olive oil—sexily, obviously—while Steve looks at the menu in continued bemusement.

“I don’t know what half of these words mean,” Steve says. “Liver pate? Sweetbread? What is...foie gras?”

“I always thought it was some kind of grass,” Bucky says, with a shrug.

“They serve grass at nice restaurants now?” Steve blinks.

“It’s French, Steve,” Bucky says. “Add an accent mark to anything and an American will eat it.”

“I think I will have the Amish chicken and garlic roasted potatoes,” Steve says, with a smile, and closes the menu.

“Bread?” Bucky offers the basket reluctantly.

“Thank you,” Steve says warmly and takes a slice to dip into the small bowl of olive oil and herbs sitting in between them. “This is nice.”

“The bread?” Bucky says, stupidly, because he’s busy eyeing the way Steve brings the piece to his mouth, the corners of his lips ticked up like the rosemary has told him a particularly funny joke.

“That too,” Steve says. “But I meant the date.”

“Oh,” Bucky says dumbly and then colors a little, pleased. “Well it’s no Avengers _charity gala_.”

Steve groans a little at that, all crinkled eyes and abashed smile.

“You saw those pictures?”

“We have to talk,” Bucky says seriously and leans across the table. “About you with dogs.”

Steve blinks.

“Do you have a problem with dogs?”

“No, Steve, I have a problem with _you with dogs_ ,” Bucky says, emphatically.

“What about me with dogs?” Steve blinks some more.

“It’s unethical!” Bucky says, throwing his hands up in the air. “It’s immoral. Absolutely illegal. I’ll sue. I don’t know a lawyer, but I’ll find one!”

“Don’t you work with a floor of lawyers?” Steve grins, amused.

“Oh yeah, them!” Bucky glares at Steve. “I’ll hire one of them. I’ll have to pay them with spoonfuls of peanut butter, since all that’s the wealth I possess, or like, my body. But I’ll do it. Don’t think I won’t.”

Steve put his hands up, unable to control his laughter.

“I believe you!” he says. Then, his laugh fading to a horrible, awful, hideous smirk that should _definitely_ be illegal in multiple states and will be if it isn’t already, if Bucky has anything to say about it, he leans forward. He’s inches away from Bucky now. They’re leaning in toward one another, Steve with his disgusting smirk and Bucky with his glare that could fell like, someone from Gen X, faces inches apart. “So you want me to hold more puppies?”

Bucky lets out a roar of rage at the same time the waiter appears with their appetizers. Then, simultaneously, they realize it was not Bucky who had let out a roar at all.

In the distance, there is the sound of inhuman roaring and very human shrieking.

“Oh dear,” the waiter says. “That’s not normal.”

“Cap!” a man in a red tin suit suddenly buzzes through the air, hovering over Union Square. “Demogorgan in front of the Flatiron building.”

“A what?” Steve blinks, instantly standing.

“Monster,” Iron Man says. “Very fast. Lots of teeth.”

Another inhuman roar and Steve pulls out his shield.

“What!” Bucky says. “Where did you get that thing?”

“I’ll be right there, Tony,” Steve says, immediately serious and ready to fight monsters. He turns to Bucky, large and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Buck. Raincheck?”

“No!” Bucky shouts, pounding his fists on the table, with the unfortunate consequence of upending the entire bowl of olive oil and basket of focaccia, and then, as he mourns the spilled bread, the whole world goes dark.

  
For absolute fuck’s sake. Only Bucky would try to go on a date with a literal superhero and end up in a parallel universe where New York City looks like it was put through the black and white filter on Instagram and a screeching monster that looks like an overgrown flower with two thousand razor teeth and 127 million oozing arms and legs is gnawing on the Flatiron building.

“I hope I’ll be getting paid overtime for this,” their waiter says, concern increasing, as Steve barrels down the streets of whatever is the equivalent of Union Square in the Upside Down.

Bucky glares at the waiter and he glares at Steve’s retreating back and he glares at the rest of the Avengers who appear out of nowhere and sure, the rest of the restaurant guests and half of Manhattan end up screaming and running away en massage from the engorged, bloodthirsty running flower shark, but mainly it’s Tony Stark’s fault that his first date with Steve was ruined _once again_ and if Stark doesn’t think that’s going to end up under his entry in Bucky’s burn book, then Bucky was going to have to have a conversation with MENSA about revising their eligibility requirements.

Anyway, Bucky runs away, with the rest of Union Square, and the Demogorgan doesn’t eat him, unfortunately, and eventually all is restored in the world, but not before he realizes, sourly, that he never even got his oysters.

“I’m so! Hungry!” Bucky says out loud to his empty apartment and flops onto his bed in distress.

Unfortunately all he has in his kitchen is a half-finished box of white cheddar Cheez Its and three jars of raspberry jelly, so he just falls asleep instead, hungry, unsatisfied, and lamenting his terrible, no good, very bad life.

*

> _You have reached the voicemail box of Loki Laufeyson. I will almost definitely not get back to you, not because of any failing on my part, but undoubtedly many on yours. You can still leave a message if you want, I guess. I won’t be answering._

  
“Yeah, I fucking _know_ ,” Bucky growls into his phone. He has his head hanging off the foot of his bed and his knees pulled up as he jams the phone against his ear. He is wearing a decade old threadbare t-shirt from the one (1) time he did Relay for Life in college, boxers, and, strangely, socks. His feet get cold.

“What is the _point_ of having a best friend who is 1) off the fucking planet and 2) is too much of an asshole to ever bother to check his fucking voicemail when 3) his very best friend in the whole entire planet—” Bucky pauses. “— _planets_ is having the worst time of his life? Do I mean nothing to you? Do you not _care_ that it has been _months_ and the most action I’ve gotten was the one time on the train when the E came to a screeching halt and I fell into someone whose hand accidentally brushed my junk?”

Bucky groans, shoves a hand in his face, and lets his head dangle even more dramatically, his hair pulled down by gravity, much like the general trajectory of his love life.

“Not that you _care_ but it is going _terribly_. First, Steve and I couldn’t find any time to go on our first date and then, after months of trying and probably like, divine intervention, we finally found an evening that worked and then what happens? Some kind of a flower dinosaur motherfucker with a thousand teeth wreaks havoc through Manhattan. No, not just one. _Multiple_. More! Than one!”

Bucky gesticulates so widely that he nearly dislocates his shoulder.

“Ow! Motherfucker! Anyway, and then as we’re sitting there, trying to eat expensive bread I personally cannot afford and I’m like, a second away from telling him his biceps are a violation of at least two different Geneva conventions, the _whole city_ falls into a parallel, alternate universe where nothing makes sense and the president is probably has petals for brains and signs Executive Orders with his dinosaur teeth.”

Bucky glares at the ceiling.

“Like! Who does that happen to? Am I cursed?” He bolts upright in bed. “Holy shit, Loki! Am I cursed? Isn’t your husband a mythological being? Can you get your mouth off his dick long enough to ask, you assh—”

> _  
> Thank you. Your message will be sent to Loki Laufeyson. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

Their third attempt at a first date goes just about as well as the other two times, even taking into account that one of those times was simply not a time at all and more a failed game of schedule tetris. This time, Bucky is determined to not only get through a main entree, but complete enough of the date that Steve will be left devastated every time Bucky walks away from him and sees how closely his leather pants cling to his ass. That will, of course, lead to yearning on the part of Captain America and perhaps even a loss of control that can only be resolved by Bucky shoving him into the nearest bathroom and dropping to his knees. Or maybe the nearest coat closet, Bucky will not be so ignominious as to give Captain America a blowjob where people pee.

Anyway, he has a plan and the plan is thus: that first, he will wear pants so tight that he needs lubrication to get into them, and that second, he will make sure to wear his favorite daisy-printed shirt under his favorite, expensive black leather jacket, just to show Steve that not only can his ass fit into leather, but he also looks good in floral print, and that third, he will charm Steve in a devastating manner until all that’s left in the good Captain’s mind is how blue Bucky’s eyes are and how a single curl is falling directly into their path, to say nothing of how his full, plush lips are just a hint of cherry red. As to part three, Bucky makes sure to swipe a cherry-tinted lip gloss that Loki left behind across his lips, after which he smacks his lips together and congratulates his reflection in the mirror for being Grade A Superhero Bait.

All three parts of the plan will lead to part four of the plan, which is that Steve will be unable to keep his eyes off of Bucky’s narrow hips and one thing will lead to another and they will bang against a sturdy door of Bucky’s choosing. It’s a foolproof plan, as far as plans are concerned, and Bucky’s feeling pretty good about all parts of it as he waits for Steve by the arch at Washington Square Park.

Bucky’s a red-blooded millennial and the late afternoon light is doing wonders for his cheekbones, so he spends a few minutes capturing his good side and uploading the pictures to Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat so that everyone is aware and also sending at least two of them to Wanda to prove a very specific point. Wanda is one of those borderline psychopaths who hasn’t turned off her read receipts, so Bucky sees the moment _she_ sees them and even though there is no reply and there are, furthermore, no dots at the bottom of his iPhone to indicate she is even contemplating a reply, Bucky _knows_ she has seen them, because it says _right there_ : _read 5:34 pm_.

“Acknowledge my cheekbones,” Bucky breathes angrily at Wanda, his nose close to being smashed onto the screen.

Bucky is thus glaring at his phone and trying to send, like, negative energy through his wireless telecommunication device, when an oversized shadow crosses him.

“Um, hello,” Bucky hears Steve’s voice say.

Bucky immediately turns his phone off and looks up, all thoughts of cursing his coworker and temporary replacement for his horrible best friend evaporating. As every time Bucky looks up and sees Steve fucking Rogers standing there, he is half flummoxed to find literal Captain America, with his 64 pack abs and golden, flaxen hair, blinking at him—him, Bucky Barnes!—out of blue eyes that the ocean would drown in, and half turned on beyond belief because Captain America and the whole Superhero with 125 abs aside, Steve Rogers is hot as hell. Like, even if he wasn’t an actual fucking Superhero who saved babies and like, stranded cats, for a living, Steve Rogers is beyond the pale, brain-meltingly, smoking hot.

So every time Bucky sees him, he has to acknowledge that to some part of himself, and that’s not an easy or a quick process, because in addition to Bucky’s brain physically melting every time he catches sight of all six-foot-whatever-inches of supersoldier, he also has to use his leftover synapses to try and form words that aren’t _uhhh_ or _guh_ or _let me put my hands into your pants immediately, I super insist._

That’s all to say that there is, once more, at least a five second lapse between Steve blinking politely at Bucky and Bucky finding enough un-fried brain cells to say, “Oh. Hi…!” with exactly the kind of intonation that a set of verbal ellipses entail.

What that delay says about Bucky and what excuses he can give Steve for having the verbal coherency of a two year old getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Bucky doesn’t have to think about for long, because just as he’s about to come up with some half-assed lie, Steve gives him another polite smile and says, “Are you Bucky Barnes? My phone said to come meet you here, but the only problem is, ah—this is embarrassing.”

Bucky, sensing some fuckery in the wind, blinks and closes his half-open mouth.

Steve Rogers runs a hand through his hair and, with a blush, says, “I can’t remember who you are. Or who I am, for that matter. Can you help me?”

Steve smiles, tentatively.

“Come...again?” Bucky asks, his eyes bugging out, but only a little.

“I seem to have misplaced my memories,” Steve says, apologetically. “I only have this phone and this one alert and other than that...poof.”

“Poof?” Bucky says, loudly. “ _Poof_?”

“So you _do_ understand,” Steve says, relieved. He looks at Bucky, equal parts pleased and hopeful, like a toddler hanging their every hope on an adult instructing them how to take food and shove it into their mouth.

This is bad. Bucky is not good with toddlers.

Steve beams at him.

Bucky lets out a horrified groan before dragging both hands down his face.

  
What do you do when your date is a superhero who gets zapped by a ray that gives him magical amnesia? Bucky has read every back-issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and it has given him exactly zero (0) skills to deal with such a situation.

Their conversation goes something like this.

“I can’t remember who I am,” Steve says, with a light, slightly embarrassed chuckle. “I suspect that’s not normal.”

“America,” Bucky says. “Captain America? You’re Captain America.”

“Captain what?” Steve says, puzzled.

“Captain _America_ ,” Bucky insists. “You know...the star-spangled man with a superhero suit that looks like it was designed by a fourth grader who watched too many hours of School House Rock?”

“Am I supposed to recognize any of those words?” Steve asks, cautiously.

“He’s—you—a superhero! With powers. I don’t know what powers exactly because we haven’t gotten to that portion of our relationship, but it’s somewhere between super-strength and flying, I think,” Bucky says, wheeling his arms around him. He stares at Steve, willing for a single memory to come back. “Well, I haven’t seen you fly anyway, but I guess that’s not completely out of the question.”

Steve looks at him funny, like he’s politely entertaining a crazy person, and to be fair Bucky reaches up to pull on the ends of his hair like every crazy person in every movie where they’re trying to convince the town Mayor that there’s like an imminent zombie attack or the house at the end of the street is populated by a vampire coven or a killer clown. The Powerpuff Girls never had this problem. What the fuck.

“Me?” Steve says, a little skeptically. “A superhero?”

“Yes, you!” Bucky says, his voice taking on only a slight hysterical tone. “You, the person I am currently staring at! All six-foot-however-many inches of pure muscle and mid-twentieth century American patriotism and blue eyes that sparkle even when you’re covered in murder jellyfish slime and about to get your limbs eaten by a flower dinosaur with shark teeth. What, do you think you were born that way? They don’t make humans who look like they could bench press other humans, but have the personality of a golden retriever the normal way!”

“I’m not sure what any of that has to do with being a superhero,” Steve points out.

“Agh!” Bucky shouts, helpfully.

“You seem a little stressed,” Steve says.

“I’m not stressed, I’m in pain,” Bucky replies and, to his credit, he really does sound it and, to his further credit, he really does feel it.

The pain starts in his stomach and ripples all the way out, infecting his heart and running in shocks down his arms and legs.

He knows what this means. There’s only one solution for this.

“You’re in pain?” Steve asks, with concern. He takes a huge, lumbering step forward and puts a firm hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Steve’s shadow falls across him more thoroughly and Bucky remembers, all at once, and very acutely, his own statement—made only seconds prior—about Steve being able to bench press other humans.

He nearly whimpers, but he does not. He has one (1) cell of dignity left.

“Yes,” Bucky says. “Immense amounts of it.”

“Why?” Steve says. His hand shifts to Bucky’s face and tilts Bucky up to look at him. Suddenly, even though it is very obvious that there is not one single brain cell of memory left in Steve’s zapped brain, Bucky is staring into crystal blue eyes that—you guessed it—are sparkling.

He groans. His one (1) cell of dignity leaves him.

“I can’t believe this,” Bucky moans. “I hate this. Give me your phone.”

  
Twenty minutes later, Tony Stark shows up.

“Hey, who are you?” the man asks.

In another life, this would be a comical, absurd, noteworthy moment. In another life, perhaps one where Bucky did not manage to keep getting cockblocked by little cosmic jokes offered by the known and unknown universe, Bucky would meet a celebrity—and superhero!—like Tony Stark and be starstruck. Perhaps he would ask some questions about Tony’s iron suits or his advanced technology or what it was like to fly. In another, kinder universe, Bucky Barnes would be able to answer Tony Stark’s question with _the smoking hot guy banging your big, blond, beefy friend._ However, this is not a kinder universe. In this universe, Bucky Barnes is Michael Cera.

That is to say, Bucky swallows a groan and waves his hand a little vaguely.

“Just a friend,” he says. “A guy who knows Steve. Cap.”

Bucky turns on his heels.

“That’s _you_ ,” he says, poking Steve in the chest.

Steve blinks at him with a look of bemusement.

“Oh boy,” Tony Stark says behind them both.

Now Tony Stark is a lot of things—Iron Man, a genius, a billionaire, but mostly he is a neurotic, annoying, nonstop pain in the ass. Bucky knows this because he has gotten high with Loki and binged all of Tony Stark’s YouTube interviews as well as YouTube compilations of Shit Tony Stark Has Said and Tony Stark’s Greatest Hits. There’s no accounting for their taste when they get high, but that’s a separate issue.

Anyway, Bucky doesn’t have _time_ for a neurotic billionaire genius who will ask him 120 questions about why Steve Rogers no longer has his memory.

“Hey there, Cap,” Tony says, approaching Steve cautiously. “I hear you’ve lost your memory. That’s okay, bud—we can fix that. Don’t you worry, there’s nothing a few lasers and some brain scans won’t fix.”

“What?” Bucky says.

“What!” Steve yelps a little, concerned.

“It’s perfectly normal!” Tony says and continues scooting closer to Steve, hand outstretched. “A beam here, an iron helmet there. It’s like a tinfoil hat, but with more buzzing. You won’t feel a thing, maybe some intense heat, a little itching here and there. A burning sensation on occasion...it’s safe, probably! Come on, Cap, come to me. Who’s a good boy? Yes, you are. Come with me, come on, ease into it—you can do it champ!”

Steve doesn’t fling himself behind Bucky, but Bucky does put his body in front of Steve, one arm to protect the boulder-sized superhuman following him around like a little duckling.

“I said come help him, not drill into his skull!” Bucky hisses at Stark.

“I said lasers!” Tony says, flapping his arms. “Lasers, not drills! They’re very different!”

Bucky’s eyes _do_ bug out this time.

“How is that any better!”

“I don’t know!” Tony flaps some more. “You didn’t say you had anything against lasers!”

“ _I didn’t know I had to._ ”

This is a disaster. This is decidedly and irrevocably, in no uncertain terms, a monumental disaster. Bucky should have called the Widow. He should have called the Hulk or that Bird guy. Hell, he should have called that dumbass who shoots arrows while his colleagues have superpowers and guns and flying iron suits.

He has made a terrible mistake and now he’s paying for it, but, unfortunately, it’s too late to cry over called Tony Starks.

“Listen,” Bucky says and he takes a deep, grounding breath. Okay. He’s an almost-30 year old millennial. He’s broke and his best friend is on an alien planet and he’s about 120 on a disaster richter scale of 10, but the facts are thus: 1) he has a stable job and 2) he _does_ volunteer at his local co-op and 3) he hasn’t killed all of his house plants yet, so that qualifies him to have one, serious conversation with his least favorite Avenger.

Stark raises his sunglasses to the top of his head. Behind him, Bucky can feel Steve pressing in perhaps closer than he strictly needs to, which floods Bucky with a kind of warmth that is distracting when he is trying to have a serious conversation with his least favorite Avenger. He files the feeling away to think about later, when he is depressed at his failed attempt to date Steve Rogers once again.

“I need you,” Bucky says and points at Stark. Stark looks surprised and points at himself. “Yes, you. I need you. To fix. Whatever’s happened to Steve’s brain. But I need you to do it without drills and without lasers and—”

Stark opens his mouth to say something and Bucky cuts him off. “—uh huh! No! Not that either! Fix his memory and unzap him, but normally. Without making him into a science experiment! Do you understand me, Stark?”

Stark opens his mouth again and Bucky glares at him. “Tell me you understand what I have said!”

Stark shuts his mouth closed with a snap and nods.

“Sure. Got it. Crystal clear. No drills or bits or lasers or picks. Say, what about—” he starts and then hastily retreats at Bucky’s black look. “Nope, not that either. Okay, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. By finding out what zapped Cap and I guess….finding…a….countermeasure to that…?”

Stark looks at Bucky for approval and Bucky sighs and turns. Steve is very close behind him, staring at him with wide, blue eyes, again, not too dissimilar from a lost puppy.

“This is Tony,” Bucky says. “He’s your colleague and….friend. Maybe. Probably. Unclear. He’s going to take you to Avengers Tower and try to get you your memory back, okay?”

Steve looks dubious.

“And I can trust him?”

“Uh,” Bucky says. “Probably. In like a general sense. He’s one of the good guys, for a broad interpretation for the word good. Anyway, don’t let him come near your head with anything sharp. Or with anything at all. Actually, once you get to the Tower maybe try to find uhh Natasha Romanoff or Sam Wilson or Bruce Banner. They’ll make sure Stark doesn’t use your brain for experimentation fodder.”

“Hey!” Stark says loudly. “I can hear you! I resent that!”

“I don’t care!” Bucky replies back, without turning.

Steve looks at Bucky like—well, reluctantly and nervously, as though he’s not ready to leave him yet.

“Call me after, okay?” Bucky says and squeezes Steve’s hand. “My number should be in your phone.”

Quickly, quicker than Bucky can process, Steve ducks forward and kisses him on the cheek.

“Thanks, Buck,” he says. “I will.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. His cheeks warm and his heart lurches. Wait, did Steve call him Buck?

Steve smiles and steps away from him.

Life is unbearably cruel.

“Hey!” Stark squawks. “What was that! I saw that! Did Cap kiss you? Are you two boning? Was this a date! Who are you! I have questions! Answer me—”

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how it’s looked at), Steve has walked away from Bucky by then.

“Okay, Tony Stark,” he says, in his low, grounding voice. “No drills, lasers, or picks. Nothing sharp by my head.”

“Well you certainly haven’t lost the boring part of your personality,” Stark sulks.

Steve says something to them and slowly, their voices grow more distant as Stark steers Steve away from the Park.

Bucky raises a hand to his cheek, feeling his skin burn where Steve’s lips touched it.

Then he groans.

He’s living his worst life and it’s not even his own fault. With a dramatic sweep of his eyes to the sky, he pulls out his phone and dials the first number on his speed dial.

“Hey, you ass!” Bucky says into the phone. “Pick up.”

*

Anyway, Steve eventually gets his memory back, Bucky assumes, but by then Bucky is so disenchanted with his own luck and definitely his own love life that he just sprawls himself across his bed and gloomily scrolls through Grindr.

The prospects, they aren’t promising.

There’s Alex, 27, from Queens, who has a smoking upper bod, but whose entire personality consists of protein shakes and how much he’s bench pressed at the gym. _Swipe._

There’s Travis, 32, from Brooklyn, who is a twink with an ear pull of hot piercings, but whose idea of conversation includes monosyllabic texts and lyrics from bands Bucky has never heard of. _Swipe._

And that’s not to even _speak_ of Milton, 29, Chelsea, who, first of all, is _named Milton_ and who has only one interest and that is the financial sector and Bucky tries, for a whole day, to pretend to find it interesting but something something hedge funds and bonds and investment capital and financial markets and something about escrow and Bucky not only unmatches, but he straight up blocks the guy for being an absolutely insufferable Wall Street douchebag.

That leaves him with a handful of guys who are either hot _or_ semi-interesting and definitely never both and, to top it all off, everyone has either watched only The Office or only Game of Thrones and has seemingly not heard of a single other show in existence.

Bucky can’t work with this.

Bucky can’t _live_ like this.

After matching with Jose, 30, from the Bronx and having a semi-interesting four day conversation about tattoos and the genesis of vampires and whether Thor or Iron Man would win in a Battle Royale ( _Do not talk to me about Thor!!!_ Bucky texts in bitterness) the whole affair implodes when Jose 1) invites him to a threesome at 1 am on a _Wednesday night_ and 2) asks for pictures of Bucky’s feet.

“I give up!” Bucky shouts. He angrily closes Grindr and throws his phone across the room. It hits the side of his one bookcase and lands, with a muffled thud, in the trash can. “Augh! I’ll just die alone!”

Bucky throws himself onto his pillow, buries his face in it, and screams.

*

Steve sends him flowers. He honest-to-god sends Bucky _flowers_.

They show up at his place of work one day when Bucky is gloomily eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a half-eaten bag of chips that he had found in the kitchenette while scrolling through Barack Obama’s Twitter account. There’s nothing happening on the account, it just soothes him to know that Barack Obama is out there, being handsome, and saying smart words.

He’s just taken a bite of his sandwich when he looks up to see someone carrying an arrangement of flowers so big they’re completely hidden behind the monstrous amount of petals. Bucky blinks rapidly in confusion and sees skinny legs sticking out beneath the vase.

“Parker?” he says and crumbles fall out of his mouth.

“Bucky!” Peter Parker’s excitable voice comes from somewhere behind an oversized purple peony. “Can you hear me? Can you see me? This is Peter Parker!”

“Yeah, I know who you are, Parker,” Bucky says. He swallows the bite and ignores the crumbs. “What’s this? You change careers?”

“No! I mean...not yet. Do you think I should? I’ve been considering it actually, but I don’t think I would be very good at floral arrangements in truth. I’m kind of lightly colorblind and also I don’t have a green thumb, like at all. Everything that I touch dies. Like this one time, I was given a succulent and you know it’s supposed to be impossible to kill succulents, right, but actually either I’m cursed or they’re very easily to kill because I did everything the Internet told me to do, like I gave it just enough sunlight and I didn’t overwater it but—”

Bucky sets his sandwich down. Briefly, he misses Loki and understands why Loki spent half of his municipal career locking Peter Parker out of his computer. It wasn’t for fun, it was for survival reasons.

“Parker,” Bucky says loudly, interrupting him. “The flowers.”

“Oh!” Peter squeaks mid-ramble. “Right, those. These are uhhh for you.”

Bucky blinks rapidly as he’s shoved the entire, enormous, oversized arrangement, just a whole garden of flowers to his face. They smell wonderful and objectively can tell this is a _Nice_ arrangement. Not just nice, but _Nice_ with a capital N and the word in italics. The flowers are colorful and fragrant and there are so many of them, whoever sent them must have bought out half the flower shop, to say nothing of how much they must have spent doing so.

Peter reappears after Bucky carefully sets the whole thing down on what little desk space he has and leans over, all however-many-foot and however-many-lanky-inches of him.

“Who’s it from?” he asks, nosily.

That’s not a bad question. Bucky doesn’t know anyone who’s rich. Hell, he doesn’t even know anything who could pretend to be rich. His best friend is a millennial who is currently married to an Avenger and off-planet and the only other friends he really has are municipal employees and like two friends from college, both of whom decided to become professional temp workers, which is to say are trying to make a name for themselves on Broadway.

Bucky briefly wonders if this is Jose’s doing, but that can’t be it either. Bucky didn’t even send him one picture of his foot.

“There’s a card!” Peter says, excitedly.

Bucky shoves his face closer to what appears to be a tiger lily and plucks off a creamy white card.

> _Dear Bucky,_
> 
> _It is my deepest embarrassment that I ruined our last date by uh, forgetting you and also my identity. If you’re willing to give me another chance, I would love to try again._
> 
> _If not, I completely understand. I know this isn’t what you signed up for._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _S.G.R._
> 
> _P.S. I hope you’re not allergic to flowers! That would be doubly embarrassing and I could never show my face in the city again._

Now Bucky is a solid kind of guy with a mostly practical head on his shoulders, and who can be even-keeled, probably, if he like, really tried at it. He’s certainly not the kind of guy who _swoons_.

But, well, he’s only human and he’s also very gay and, specifically, he is very gay for Steve Rogers, so what is a guy who is only human and also very gay and also very specifically gay for Steve Rogers to do when Steve Rogers himself sends an apology floral arrangement the size of megafauna to make up for getting zapped in the brain by a forgetting laser _and_ asks for another date _and_ signs the card off with _yours_.

“Are you okay?” Peter watches Bucky carefully, with concern, as Bucky clutches the card to his chest and tries not to dramatically faint on the spot. “Bucky...Bucky? Hello?”

Bucky ignores Peter. He ignores the looks he’s getting from his other coworkers and he ignores the rest of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and he _even_ ignores President Barack Hussein Obama, respectfully.

He plucks an orchid and sticks it in his hair.

In the background, Peter shoves his face closer to the flowers and sneezes.

“Hey!” he says. “Are those Forget-Me-Nots?”

*

The fourth time they attempt a first date, Bucky and Steve decide to watch a Broadway show. It’s tickets to previews of _A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder_ , which is not a show that Bucky has ever heard of since Loki is usually the one who drags him to musicals and Loki has been gone for _six goddamn months_ , but it has the word murder in it and also Steve gets special box seat tickets for them, which makes Bucky feel a wide range of emotions, all terribly positive.

Bucky has to work until an hour before the show and Steve has to go avenge or whatever it is that superheroes do, so they meet at the box office a half an hour before curtain, Steve dressed in khakis and a nice, blue button up, his blond hair combed over and a sprinkle of pink across his cheeks.

Bucky doesn’t have the bandwidth to contemplate what that faint blush is doing to his brain cells, but he manages to return Steve’s shy “ _Hi, Buck_ ” with a grin that probably doesn’t make him look completely unhinged.

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky says and shoves his hands into his dark-washed denim jacket, like a Cool Guy, and he’s rewarded with another cute, slightly shy smile that goes straight to his gut. “How’s the memory?”

Steve blushes at that and his shy smile turns immediately into an embarrassed scowl and it’s so cute Bucky’s gonna die.

“Oh, you know,” Steve says. “I have it.”

“Hey, good for you,” Bucky says and earns a laugh for it, Steve’s scowl twisted into a begrudging half-smile that only makes him look more handsome than he already does. It’s insane. It genuinely doesn’t make sense and Bucky will be filing a court order against him.

“Do you like musicals?” Steve asks and then blinks. “Maybe the right time to ask was before I bought tickets to a musical.”

“Should I lie?” Bucky says.

“Please,” Steve grins and Bucky feels bold enough to bump Steve’s shoulder, lightly, and if his hand also brushes against Steve’s in the process, then it isn’t a surreptitious strategy to hold Steve’s hand, but gravity exacting the laws of physics on Bucky’s limbs.

“Luckily for you, I’m gay and also my best friend has season tickets to Broadway,” Bucky says.

Steve blinks at him.

“Can you have season tickets to...Broadway?”

“Please do not ask me to explain Loki to you, because I don’t think the answer is yes, but I also cannot have any awareness of petty criminal activity,” Bucky says.

Steve’s face lights up as he laughs in surprise this time and Bucky’s less surreptitious about it when he brushes his index finger against Steve’s hand. Luckily for him, Steve doesn’t appear to mind, because he’s hardly stopped laughing before Bucky feels a hand slip into his own.

That makes both Bucky’s head and stomach swoop so violently that if he were a lesser man, he would crash back against the line of harried New Yorkers trying to get into this apparently critically acclaimed Broadway show, but thankfully he’s not a lesser man, so he just sways on his feet instead while looking up at Steve with dopey hearts in his eyes. Steve also looks back at him with dopey hearts in his eyes.

They’re both extremely dopey and not at all cool and Bucky’s about to say something that’s going to get him hired as a Hallmark card greeting card writer when the worst thing in the entire world happens to them.

“Rogers! Oh good, did you pick up our tickets?”

Bucky’s blood runs cold. The dopey look on Steve’s face likewise evaporates, replaced by an expression of despair and exhaustion on a level so deep as to be existential.

“Oh, hey!” Tony Stark says, skidding to a halt next to the two of them. “It’s you.”

Bucky blinks at him and Tony’s mouth twitches as he looks rapidly between Steve and Bucky and down to their linked hands and then back up to the two of them.

“Tony,” Steve says, pained. “What a...surprise. To see you here.”

“Is it?” Tony blinks rapidly. “Did I get the date wrong? The time? I had JARVIS put it in my calendar and he’s never wrong! That goes against his programming.”

It doesn’t take a certified genius to see that there’s been some kind of a miscommunication, although the certified genius in their vicinity doesn’t seem aware of it. Tony grins and begins chattering away about Broadway and about the box seats that he got them and how difficult his day was and his unsolicited thoughts on Kinky Boots, which was overrated, in his opinion, but which he had watched four times anyway because, strangely, James Rhodes really enjoyed it.

He’s like a force of nature that is stoppable only by divine means, but unfortunately God has abandoned Bucky and apparently supersoldiers are not divine, because Steve responds to all of Bucky’s pleading looks apologetically and each time he tries to interrupt Tony to fix their situation, he’s duly ignored.

“You,” Tony says, suddenly, turning around after he’s made an embarrassing fuss and gotten them to the front of the line and in through the doors of the Walter Kerr Theater by virtue of _being Tony Stark_.

The two of them, no longer holding hands, stop abruptly as Tony peers into Bucky’s face.

“Uh,” Bucky says.

“Did you turn Cap gay?”

“What?” Bucky says, startled, at the same time, beet red, Steve says, “ _Tony!_ ”

“What, I can’t ask?” Tony says, in the middle of this theater lobby, with people milling around them and staring because one Avenger is noticeable, but two simply cannot be ignored.

“No, you literally can’t,” Steve hisses at the same time Tony gives Bucky a literal once over and says, thoughtfully, “I mean, I guess I get it. He has a very—” he waves his hand vaguely, “What’s the word for it? Oh, Pepper just taught it to me—twink? Is that it? He has a very twink vibe, what with the skinny jeans and the curls and—”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Steve groans and covers his face with both his hands as Bucky feels, briefly, like maybe he’s losing his entire mind. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” Tony rambles, waving his hand about in the air. “I mean would a heads up have been nice? Sure. Would I have decorated your floor in rainbows if you had just shared with your _best friend_ Tony a little instead of bottling up all of your secrets and emotions like a particularly large and handsome brick wall? It’s not like it was in the 1600s Cap, we’re _very_ accepting, Obama is the President, love-is-love-is-lov—”

“Holy shit,” Steve says and suddenly moves into action, moving forward and shoving Tony by the shoulder until the much smaller man is stumbling through a hurriedly parting crowd. “Come on, to the seat, the show is starting, let’s go.”

Bucky, half-mortified and half-bemused, shuffles to keep up with them, sprinting up the stairs behind a bickering Steve and Tony while ignoring all of the stares they’re getting, to say nothing of the multiple cellular devices he can see people not-so-secretly pointing at the three of them.

He is, without a single doubt, going to be viral on YouTube before the end of the night and will be on TMZ by the end of the musical, if not by the literal end of his train of thought.

He does _not_ know how he’ll explain that to Wanda. Maybe he’ll throw his cell phone away and start a new life, Bucky thinks, as Steve pulls him in through the curtain and into their balcony seats. In that life, he will make sure to know no friends and no coworkers and, especially, no billionaire geniuses with zero comprehension of personal boundaries.

“Sorry,” Steve leans over and whispers into Bucky’s ear as they settle into their seats.

He takes Bucky’s hand and squeezes it, which makes Bucky go cross-eyed and a little funny.

“It’ll still be a good show,” Bucky says back, with a little grin.

Steve looks hopeful at that and then the signal goes off for the audience to sit and the lights to turn down.

“Yeah, it will be,” Tony Stark grins, sticking his face over Steve’s shoulder to address them both.

Steve looks immediately harassed and Bucky internally groans and then the curtains open to murder.

  
Tony Stark is the worst. No, let Bucky reiterate: Tony Stark is the _worst._

It’s not just that he leans over every ten minutes to loudly whisper his thoughts to Steve and Bucky. He also produces a bag of chips that he proceeds to crunch on, to almost deafening levels of sound, laughs at all of the wrong moments and is quiet at all of the funny ones, does not appear to understand that he should not voice every question he has out loud, leans over Steve’s shoulder entirely too often to poke his face into both Bucky and Steve’s personal space, makes distracting facial expressions any time Bucky and Steve hold hands, and, perhaps, worst of all, he not only forgets to silence his phone, but he _answers it in the middle of the show._

From any person, these things would be unbearable, but from him are especially unforgivable, since he doesn’t even get kicked out of the theater because he’s Tony Stark and his net worth is ten times what Broadway makes in revenue each calendar year.

Steve is clearly not only embarrassed, but actively angry. Tony does not notice.

The curtain lets up and the cast are given a standing ovation for what Bucky assumes, although cannot be certain, was a very funny and well acted show. Bucky stands up too, a little dazed and more than a little irate.

“Well, that was okay,” Tony says, dubiously. “I mean the music was fine, I guess, although the humor was a bit too simple for my tastes. Not sure I understand the hype. I’m sure you did your best though, Cap, but I think I should pick the show next time.”

Steve lets out a little strangled sound that is, thankfully, drowned out by all of the applause. Bucky grabs Steve’s hand and drags him away from his colleague, thereby very likely stopping him from strangling Tony Stark, which, while satisfying, would have resulted in a lot of inconvenient paperwork. This is probably the most romantic gesture he can make in the middle of a crowded Broadway theater and Steve will definitely thank him for it later.

They emerge from the theater, Steve with a throbbing vein in his temple and Bucky feeling like they’re about to reach the light at the end of this very long and terrible tunnel.

“How about dinner?” Bucky suggests, partly because Steve looks like he’s going to explode and partly because he’s desperate to salvage _one date_ with Captain America in his lifetime.

Steve’s jaw ticks, but he softens at that.

“I could eat,” he says and his distressed look starts to smooth out. “Pizza?”

Bucky starts to grin, _delighted_ by the suggestion, when Tony Stark appears at his left shoulder.

“Pizza?” Tony says and rolls his shoulders. “Yeah, I guess I could go for a slice. I’m picking though, I don’t trust your taste anymore.”

Bucky groans and Steve doesn’t self-immolate on the spot, but Bucky can tell he wants to. Neither can say no, so Steve links his hand with Bucky’s yet again and begrudgingly sets off toward Eighth Avenue.

They go get pizza, with Tony Stark.

*

_You have reached the voicemail box of Loki Laufeyson. I will almost definitely not get back to you, not because of any failing on my part, but undoubtedly many on yours. You can still leave a message if you want, I guess. I won’t be answering._

  
Bucky shrieks for two minutes straight until the voice messaging system cuts him off.

Then he throws his phone into the trash can and aggressively eats an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food out of the carton while leaving angry anonymous reviews of Iron Man on the Google reviews page for Avengers Tower.

*

Maybe he and Steve are cursed, Bucky thinks. That seems reasonable, given that Steve works with aliens and Gods and Tony fucking Stark. Someone probably saw Stark open his mouth and Steve got zapped by a hex that ruins Bucky’s love life. Bucky knows this makes sense in some very logical and not at all irrational way.

Well, if he and Steve are cursed, then Bucky has no choice but to date other people. This is probably fine because even though Steve is literally the hottest human being on the entire planet and a supersoldier with supersoldier stamina and a superhero and also the cutest person Bucky has ever literally met, that’s stuff that any random Jeff can fill.

So he re-downloads Grindr, finds someone who does not seem to have a thing for feet, and asks him out on a date.

His name is Andrew and he’s blond and has brown eyes and he’s not huge, but he’s not small and he’s not loud, but he’s not soft and he works in a field that Bucky is certain he told him about, but which Bucky has since forgotten. IT, maybe. Something about computers. Maybe he builds computers.

Maybe he is a computer.

Bucky sits across from Andrew at a romantic, candle-lit restaurant in the West Village and they order appetizers that arrive on time and entrees that are not only delivered to their table, but which they have time to eat. They’re not interrupted. There are no aliens and there are no flower monsters and there are no superheroes with neurotic tendencies and extremely bad opinions about musical theater.

Andrew talks to Bucky about computers in a tone that makes Bucky want to take a nail file to his eyeballs and Bucky asks Andrew about movies, none of which he has seen, and also about TV shows, which, honestly, seem too interesting for Andrew to even consider by half.

They reach dessert and Bucky is desperate to leave or get eaten by a dinosaur creature, but it’s Restaurant Week and so dessert comes with the overpriced meal. He stabs a spoon into his chocolate lava cake and considers crying. Andrew does not notice. Andrew is now talking to him about the Linux operating system.

Bucky glares at Andrew for 85% of dinner, stopping only to finish his lava cake and take two ten minute bathroom breaks during which time he calls Wanda and tells her to either come and put him out of his misery or commit a light act of arson for which Bucky will be happy to take the blame. Wanda entertains his first call. She sends him to voicemail for his second.

Andrew also does not notice this.

“This was so nice,” he says at the end of the interminable date and leans forward to kiss Bucky.

It’s like kissing his Nonna on the mouth, except his Nonna’s lips don’t feel like they belong to the blubbery underbelly of a beluga whale.

There is so little chemistry and so little finesse that Bucky actually wishes he did not know what the act of kissing was.

“Are you free on Friday?” Andrew looks at Bucky hopefully after they pull back.

“Oh...no,” Bucky says. “I’m...moving. Countries.”

“Oh,” Andrew says, looking disappointed. “That’s unfortunate timing. Well, if you’re ever back in the U.S…”

“Yup,” Bucky says, popping the p. “Definitely.”

He slowly backs away and Andrew waves at him. Bucky gives him a thumbs up, turns on his heels, and vows to live a life of celibacy.

*

Bucky angrily and aggressively dials Loki’s number. It rings for a minute before, as usual, going straight to voicemail.

_You have reached the voicemail box of Loki Laufeyson. I will almost definitely not get back to you, not because of any failing on my part, but undoubtedly many on yours. You can still leave a message if you want, I guess. I won’t be answering._

  
“ _Yeah I am well fucking aware!_ ” Bucky shouts into the speaker. “I’m going to kill you when you get back, just so you’re aware. I don’t care that your husband is a literal Norse God or that you’re now an alien by marriage, when you get back here, I am going to literally push you into the Hudson River for abandoning me in my greatest time of need and never answering my calls and never returning my voicemails and _not even sending me a single text message_ even though my life is falling apart and I might be in love with someone who _I have not been on a single successful date with_ and if I die from misery, I will come back to haunt you, I don’t care what planet you’re on. Also if and when I push you into the Hudson River, I’ll make sure that Thor is busy fighting like, the Loch Ness Monster or something, so even he can’t save you and then you’ll have to try to fight the toxic miasma of the Hudson and you will fail and then you will die and I will be happy because that will be my revenge.”

Bucky stops to take a breath.

“ _I hate you_!” he shouts into the phone and then, slowly slumps. “I hate you. Call me back. I miss you. Bye.”

*

So anyway, dating other people is a bust and Loki still hasn’t returned his calls, so by the middle of summer, Bucky is Depressed. He decides that dating isn’t for him after all and deletes Grindr from his phone _again_ and every time a man so much as looks at him, he returns their interest with a pointed glare. Instead, he adopts Montgomery and becomes the late-20s, hipster equivalent of a cat lady.

He spends two weeks building Montgomery the cat palace of his little cat dreams in the middle of his closet-sized Brooklyn apartment and another two weeks learning how to knit for the sole purpose of making Montgomery a little hat and funny little mittens to go with his little hat. He’s halfway to joining a Facebook group where crafters review their favorite skeins of yarn when Wanda appears at his apartment door at 9 pm on a Friday night.

Bucky is on the couch with three skeins of yarn spread across his lap and Montgomery is resting like a King on Bucky’s shitty IKEA coffee table.

“Why do you have a key to my apartment?” Bucky asks as a ball of yarn falls from his lap and goes unraveling across the floor.

“I stole Loki’s,” Wanda says and then gives him a look so critical Bucky feels it several years into his past. “This is inappropriate. I am sad and embarrassed for you. Give me your phone.”

Bucky doesn’t have a chance to protest, because of the aforementioned balls of yarn, but he does make a little noise of protest as Wanda swipes his phone from the counter and puts his code in to unlock it.

“Hey!” Bucky exclaims. “How did you know my passcode!”

“Loki,” Wanda remarks and starts scrolling through his contacts.

“I’m going to kill that useless asshole,” Bucky grumbles and then tries to disentangle himself from his failed attempt at a cat hat to try and get to Wanda before she does anything too hasty. “What are you doing! Stop! I’m living a life of celibacy, I turned my forms in to God and everything!”

“Please, do not make me more embarrassed for you than I already am,” Wanda says. She leans against the counter and makes a sound of approval when she finds who she’s looking for. She begins typing.

Bucky manages to trip over his basket of yarn and crochet needles toward the kitchen counter.

“There,” Wanda says, before he reaches her.

“No!” Bucky says, in deep despair. “What have you done!”

“Fixed your love life,” Wanda says and hands the phone back. “You’re welcome. Let’s celebrate with wine.”

Bucky fumbles with his phone and is panicked to see **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]** at the top.

“Oh my god,” Bucky says, out loud. “ _What have you done?_ ”

“I have already answered this question,” Wanda says, rummaging through his cabinets. She reaches up on her tiptoes and finds his wine. “This is in little boxes. Why, Bucky?”

“My life sucks and I’m Depressed,” Bucky says in reply.

He reads through what Wanda has sent, which is a text from him (Bucky) saying he (Bucky) is sorry he’s been weird and that he (Bucky) thinks he (Steve Rogers) is cute and that if he (Steve Rogers) will forgive him (Bucky) for the bad etiquette, he’d like to ask him (Steve Rogers) out on another date. Then he (Steve Rogers) texts back him (Bucky) and says that no, he (Steve Rogers) was the one being weird and that he (Steve Rogers) is embarrassed and dumb and sorry and that he (Steve Rogers) would love to go out on another date, especially one where they’re allowed to be alone together this time.

Well that _does_ sound agreeable and even ideal, even though Bucky doesn’t think the curse will allow for it.

> **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]:** I was really nervous you wouldn’t want to give me another chance after last time, so I’m relieved you reached out. Third time’s the charm? :)

Bucky hates how kind Steve fucking Rogers is and how fond he feels despite everything because trying to date an Avenger has been a literal nightmare and he’s probably better off building cat castles with Montgomery.

Still, Bucky is only human and he doesn’t want to make a literal superhero sad. That would be bad for morale and Bucky Barnes can’t be held personally responsible for any failed routs of future alien invasions, it would wreak havoc on his cortisol levels. This is obviously a perfectly valid and reasonable excuse for the amount of grinning and typing back he does.

 _Fifth, Steve._ he texts and then, because he’s a whole goddamned sucker for blue eyes and a smile that doesn’t quit, _Fifth time’s the charm. :)_

He sees the three dots at the bottom of the screen and his stomach swoops, but before he can finish his emotional affair with the concept of Steve Rogers replying back to him, Wanda shoves a box of wine at him and with her free hand turns him to steer him back toward his couch.

“You’re renting the movie of my choice,” she announces. “And ordering me sushi. You’re welcome. Now stop making that face at your phone, it is triggering my secondhand embarrassment.”

“That’s just my face!” Bucky protests and lets himself be manhandled back toward his previous nest of bachelor despair.

He does, in fact, order them sushi, and he does, in fact, rent the movie of Wanda’s choice, but he also keeps the grin on his face.

His phone lights up with a text message.

> **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]:** Can’t wait!

Even Montgomery seems to purr in satisfaction.

  
Well anyway, Bucky just didn’t know what he expected, at this point. A normal dinner date, perhaps. Coffee and a shared slice of cake. Honestly, he would have settled for ice cream cones while they walked around midtown Manhattan, staring at the crowds of tourists in front of Macy’s absolutely losing their minds over the display of unchecked capitalism, which is literally the equivalent of hell on Earth.

They do not, of course, get to do any of these things.

What happens is that Steve Rogers gets into a fight with John O. Brennan, the Director of the literal CIA, on Twitter.

Bucky doesn’t know the details of it, really, because his Twitter feed is solely celebrity accounts of various repute and accounts that post hourly pictures of possums, but he’s waiting for Steve at Bryant Park for over an hour when he gets a text message.

> **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]:** Please don’t hate me...

Bucky groans. Out there, in the middle of Manhattan, sitting at a public table outside of the Le Pain Quotidien stand, he _groans_.

 _What did you do?_ he texts back.

The three dots blink at him for too many seconds too long before the rest of Steve’s message pops up.

> **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]:** Well. Okay, so I accidentally got into a Twitter fight with the Director of the CIA and I might have said some things and one thing led to another and the Widow released some files and—it’s not a huge deal, there’s just a 20th century Nazi organization involved in the government and the CIA isn’t too happy with us blah blah government secrets, anyway, now I have to flee the country. They’ll probably let me back in at some point, but uh...maybe I could get back to you on our date…?

He ends the text in one of those hopeful emojis, with the big eyes and a smile.

“ _Are you fucking kidding me?_ ” Bucky says out loud to his phone.

He types in his answer immediately: _>?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!**#*#$*&#$*&$#*@*???????_

The three dots appear again. They start. They stop. They start again. They stop. Bucky’s going to have a _fucking aneurysm_.

> **STEVE ROGERS [star emoji] [eggplant emoji]:** It shouldn’t be too long! It’ll be fine. I’m almost certain I’ll be able to come back one day. I have to throw my phone away, but I’ll write! Wait for me!

_STEVE?????_ Bucky types in all caps. _STEVEN ROGERS?????_

There’s no response and the next time he tries to text him, the text bounces back to him.

  
Bucky visits a psychic the next day. He has his palms read. He looks into a murky crystal ball. He hands over $50 to buy sage and takes it home to burn in his room. He gets through half of it before Montgomery decides it’s a snack, so he doesn’t get to fully cleanse the bad vibes, but he thinks that should clear enough to get by on.

He tries to call Steve back and the call immediately goes to a message about this number being seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Bucky shrieks and throws his phone into the trash can.

Then the gifts start to appear.

The first one is a crystal snowglobe that has a little mountain with a llama perched on top. When Bucky shakes it, instead of snow, it flurries little alpaca-shaped confetti. There’s no note attached, although there is a little _SGR_ engraved into the bottom of the snowglobe.

Bucky sighs and shakes it a little and then puts it on top of his highest bookcase, where Montgomery won’t try to eat it. Bucky loves his dumb, little feral monster, but the damned cat tries to eat everything. Bucky’s already lost one pair of sneakers, his favorite sweater, two bags of bread, and a succulent that he had painstakingly kept alive for the past two years. Montgomery eyes the snowglobe too, but Bucky shushes him away.

The little llama stares down at Bucky whenever he returns home and, with a sigh, Bucky goes to his laptop to see if the unfortunate crush of his life has been caught by the authorities yet.

  
The snowglobe is the first mysterious gift, but it is only the beginning.

Once a week, Bucky opens the door to find something else at his doorstep. His not-so-mysterious well-wisher also sends to him: three bags of good coffee, some fuzzy narwhal slippers, a puzzle of the country of Azerbaijan, a pillow in the shape of sushi, an intricate, mixed media portrait of a naked man dancing, _The Hobbit_ translated into Armenian, a five pound bag of Turkish gummy bears, a cutting board shaped like Sweden, a jacket that looks like a disco ball threw up onto it, with the word _Eurovision_ embroidered in silver thread and sequins across the back, a case of assorted hot sauces, some so hot that the box says they’re illegal in multiple countries, and an enormous stuffed panda bear half the size of Bucky’s doorway.

This continues for three months, until Bucky’s apartment is stuffed with an assortment of mostly useless international gifts and zero notes and while he has made great use out of his narwhal slippers and Montgomery has claimed the panda bear for his personal throne, it does not _make up_ for semi-dating the amorphous presence of a fugitive supersoldier.

Every day he watches the news, waiting for some kind of absolution, but no, the CIA seems pissed at Steve and so does the FBI and the NSA and ICE and although President Obama is beautiful and elegant and well-spoken, even he doesn’t make any moves to expunge Captain America’s criminal record.

Typical.

“What’s happening with your love life?” his baby sister calls him just to prove to Bucky that his life is Sad and everyone is well aware. “Ma’s worried. She wants to set you up with a nice boy from church.”

“They don’t even go to church!” Bucky splutters into the phone

“Yeah, desperate times call for desperate flyers posted to the church’s community bulletin board,” Becca says, chewing and popping gum in the background.

“What!” Bucky yells.

“They like someone named Caligula,” Becca offers.

“ _Caligula_?” Bucky asks incredulously.

“That’s his name,” Becca confirms.

Bucky can’t sleep with a guy named Caligula. He has to get out of this. He panics.

“Tell Ma I’m...dead,” he says.

“I’m not going to tell our mother you’ve died,” Becca says.

Fuck.

“Okay,” Bucky says. “How about that I’ve contracted a disease. An incurable one. Hanahaki disease.”

“I’ve read fanfiction too, Buck,” Becca says.

“Fuck!” Bucky shouts. “Sorry, I can’t talk. I’m going through a tunnel. It’s the Bering Strait. I live in Russia now.”

“Bucky Barnes!”

“Dasvidanya!” Bucky shouts and hangs up on his flesh and blood.

*

Three months and one week later, the Falcon shows up at his door.

“What the fuck!” Bucky says, opening his door to Sam fucking Wilson carrying what looks like a small tree.

“It’s some kind of fig,” Sam explains, as though this is perfectly normal. “Very rare. Make sure it gets enough sunlight.”

“What am I supposed to do with a fig tree, Wilson!” Bucky says, gesturing his arms widely. “In a Bushwick apartment!”

“Eat figs?” Sam Wilson suggests.

“I hate you!” Bucky yells. “All of you! Where is Steve!”

Sam pats Bucky’s shoulder sympathetically, although it turns out that’s only a ruse to hand off an entire fig tree. Bucky has no idea where Steve can buy an entire fig tree to mail to Sam in order to deliver to Bucky, but wherever it is, Bucky is going to show up and dump an entire carton of Fig Newtons on the dumb blond’s head.

“There, there,” Sam Wilson says.

Bucky hates the Falcon.

Well, Sam clearly has no answers for him and he’s too cheerful as he slowly backs down the tiny, poorly-lit hallway, fig tree no longer in his possession.

“Tell that asshole to call me!” Bucky shouts. “Tell him I’m too hot to be single!”

Sam points to his ear as though he can’t hear what Bucky’s said and Bucky glares daggers at him. He makes sure to continue to glare at him until he leaves his apartment building and Bushwick and maybe the entire state of New York.

  
He adds a fig tree to the list of ridiculous things in his apartment which remind him of, but are not, in fact, Captain America.

Montgomery hisses at the fig tree before trying to eat it. Bucky understands his cat completely.

He sighs out loud, glumly looking at the leafs of his new fruit plant and, somewhere in his mind, reluctantly, has to admit the sage did not, in fact, work.

He doesn’t know how, but he’s positive this is in some way, shape, or form, Michael Cera’s fault.

Fuck that guy.

*

_You have reached the voicemail box of Loki Laufeyson. I will almost definitely not get back to you, not because of any failing on my part, but undoubtedly many on yours. You can still leave a message if you want, I guess. I won’t be answering._

  
“I know, I know,” Bucky says, morosely. “I know you won’t get this and you won’t listen to this and even if you do, you won’t answer, but you’ve been gone forever and it sucks. You’re gone and Steve’s gone and I have a cat and I have Wanda and I guess they’re fine, but they’re not you. Or Steve. I don’t know what to do. We still haven’t managed a real date and now he’s a fugitive and I don’t know for how long, but I can’t wait for him forever, Loki. That’s crazy, right? We made out once during that one party when you and Thor were still here and then never again. I can’t just sit around for a year, hoping for the guy I like to call me back, even if he is a literal superhero and cute and funny and makes me feel like there are butterflies bursting out of my eyeballs, right?”

Bucky sighs and lets his head hang over the edge of his bed.

“But also no one else is interesting or as hot and he keeps sending me these weird gifts and I keep thinking if we can have just _one goddamn date_ then maybe everything would fall into place and we wouldn’t have our own green card wedding, but maybe we could like, go on some more dates and maybe hold hands again and I could kiss him sometimes and also the sex would probably be really hot if we ever got to it.”

Bucky looks as glum as he feels. Montgomery senses this distress and jumps up onto the bed and then settles down on Bucky’s stomach. Bucky pets him comfortingly.

“I really really like him and it sucks,” Bucky says. “It sucks that we never get time alone and it sucks that he’s a fugitive and it sucks that you’re not here for me to whine at.”

Bucky’s quiet.

“It really sucks that you’re not here,” he says. And then, quietly, “Come home.”

_  
Thank you. Your message will be sent to Loki Laufeyson. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

When it’s all said and done, it’s the end of October and Bucky is drinking away his feelings. He feels this is a perfectly valid response to the nearly year of waiting he’s done and the fact that he’s down one best friend and will never get a date with the supersoldier of his dreams.

He goes to some hipster bar near his place that has half-priced drinks for sad, pathetic losers like him and sits at the counter in his slutty clothes, not _really_ looking to get any action, but definitely hoping that feeling slutty and drinking his feelings in vodka will help him feel better.

It doesn’t.

It just makes him pee a lot instead.

He gets up to pee three times and two of the times, his seat is still empty when he gets back to the bar. On the third time, there is a large man in a leather jacket, hunched over in his seat.

Bucky frowns and, a little tipsy and a lot miserable, he taps the guy aggressively on the shoulder.

“Hey, pal,” he says. “I’ve had a shit ten months and all I want to do is sit there in my seat and drink shitty vodka and get white girl wasted while crying into a basket of greasy mozzarella sticks. Can you find somewhere else to sit?”

The very large, beefsteak of a guy slowly straightens. When he turns, Bucky recognizes bright blue eyes and very serious eyebrows, although his hair is longer and wavyer and his face is covered in a dark golden beard that is insanely hot.

“What?” Bucky says, blinking.

“Hey, stranger,” Steve says, sheepishly. “I hope you got all my gifts.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say at first. First of all, he’s very tipsy and second of all, he hasn’t gotten laid in like three lifetimes, which means that, third of all, he’s pretty sure that he has single-handedly manifested an even larger and gruffer and hotter Steve Rogers into existence, which shouldn’t be possible, but the object of his hallucination stands and he’s definitely at least twice as broad as the real version of himself.

“I can’t believe this,” Bucky says, out loud.

The hallucination of Steve gives him an apologetic look and scratches the back of his neck, where his dark-and-honey-blond hair is curling just slightly at the end.

“I’m sorry. I should have called,” Steve says. “I should have texted.”

Bucky takes a shaky step forward and the mirage of Captain America looks both hopeful and regretful.

“Unbelievable,” Bucky comments.

“It wasn’t safe,” Steve says.

“Extraordinary!” Bucky replies.

“I was hoping the gifts were enough.” Steve stops and now his hopeful look is a little more uncertain. “Were they?”

“The human brain is capable of so much,” Bucky says. His eyes are wide and he moves forward and begins pawing at the ghost of Steve Rogers. He pats his shoulders and his face and all the way down his strangely solid-seeming barrel chest. “I mean I never thought I had that kind of imagination, personally, but I guess I was wrong. Oh, I like these.”

He happily gropes phantom Steve’s tits, which are large and solid beneath his fingers.

“Bucky!” the apparition who looks like Steve says, his voice going high and squeaky and very cute, while his ghostly face flushes pink. Steve catches Bucky’s wrist in between his large and warm and very solid fingers and gives him a soft and fond look. “I’m not a ghost. It’s me. It’s Steve.”

That makes Bucky frown. He takes his hand back.

“No,” he says.

“No?” Steve’s expression falls.

“No,” Bucky says and this time he collapses into the newly open seat next to the one the figment of Bucky’s Steve-focused imagination had stolen from him. “No, it can’t be the real you because we’re cursed and there is no reason for me to believe that the curse has been lifted because Montgomery ate all of the sage before I could be cleansed and if it isn’t interdimensional monsters, it’s your nosy coworkers, and if it’s not _them_ , it’s because you’ve gotten into a _literal fight_ with the _literal Director of United States Homeland Security and Intelligence_.”

Steve opens his mouth to try and defend himself, maybe, but he snaps it shut when Bucky glares at him. It didn’t work on Sam freaking Wilson, but it does work on Steve, who is extremely attractive and looks very sad, currently, but Bucky doesn’t care because he deserves it.

“But mostly it’s the curse,” Bucky pronounces and then waves the bartender over frantically. “Sir! I need liquor. I do not care what kind, give me something and make sure it is strong.”

Bucky looks over at Steve, who still has not sat down.

“Would you also like liquor?”

Steve frowns and then, with a sigh as large as his very big body, nods. He takes a seat and the bartender looks at both of them suspiciously.

“Why do you look familiar?” he asks and Bucky turns his glare on him.

“He’s a world-renowned, international fugitive. Excuse me, can we have a moment?”

The bartender looks disgruntled at that, but goes away to do his job.

Bucky and Steve sit in silence that is only made bearable because Bucky is one more shot from being drunk.

“What do we do?” Steve asks, sadly.

“Nothing,” Bucky says. He looks at the half-eaten basket of now-cold greasy mozzarella sticks morosely. He takes one and offers it to Steve. “Mozzarella stick?

“I used to be lactose intolerant,” Steve says, miserably, and takes the mozzarella stick.

They sit next to each other, biting into disgusting, congealed fake cheese.

“I really wanted to take you on a first date,” Steve says, sadly. He swallows his fried cheese cylinder and Bucky does the same.

“I really wanted to be taken on a first date by you,” he says.

Steve gives him a beautiful and yearning sidelong look.

Nope. Bucky’s not falling for _that_ again.

“Shhh,” Bucky says as the bartender brings them back four little shot glasses of something amber-colored. He takes two and shoves one into Steve’s big, meaty hand. “Shut up and drink with me.”

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve says and looks as though he really wishes he could get drunk.

“Good, good,” Bucky says. “I’ll get drunk for both of us. To...the mortifying ordeal of being hexed.”

Steve gives Bucky a dubious look and Bucky just grins at him, pats his meatslab of a shoulder, and throws back the drink.

He chokes, coughing on what is definitely whiskey, and waits for Steve to do the same before grabbing the other two shots.

“Are you sure?” Steve asks. “No way to resolve this?”

“Nope,” Bucky says and shoves the second shot glass into Steve’s hand. “We should quit while we’re not ahead.”

Steve looks glum, but accepts this for the incontrovertible truth it is. They both drink and this time, Bucky is well and truly basically drunk.

The colors are brighter and the sounds are louder and he feels more at peace than he has in months. Sometimes giving up is the best course of action, actually. He grins at Steve and gives him a very thorough once over.

“So, what’s with the beard?”

“I grew it that one time,” Steve points out.

“I know,” Bucky says, fondly. “This one’s better. Darker. Hotter.”

“You like it?” Steve asks, running a hand through the dark hair and Bucky is too gay to not track this movement very closely.

“Yes, it is very pleasing to me,” Bucky says. “Was it on purpose or—?”

Steve gives him a lopsided grin. It’s very handsome.

“We were running around from hotel to hotel and it was easier to not shave,” he says. “And then it was a good disguise.”

“No one expects Captain America to look like a hot lumberjack fantasy,” Bucky agrees.

Steve flushes and blinks.

“What?”

This time Bucky grins. He squints and leans closer. “I think.”

“Yeah?” Steve looks at him, hopefully. He blinks some more. His eyelashes reach down to his cheekbones because he’s horrible and, furthermore, a disgusting human being.

Well anyway, they don’t have to give up _immediately_ , Bucky thinks. Like this instant. There’s nothing in the law about that. These things take time. He has to pull himself up by his bootstraps or something. Bucky’s mixing metaphors. He stares at Steve’s lush and pink mouth and doesn’t care.

“We should make out,” Bucky decides.

Steve’s face brightens.

“What about the curse?”

“That’s a problem for future us,” Bucky says. “I want your mouth on my mouth and at the end of it, I want beard burn across my face. Maybe my throat. Some other places too. I’ll let you decide. Deal?”

Steve’s bright blue eyes darken and flicker down to Bucky’s mouth. Bucky purses his lips to make sure to accentuate what he’s offering here.

Steve licks his own and nods.

“Deal,” he says.

“Extremely good talk,” Bucky says, with heat.

Then, he places a hand on the back of Steve’s neck and reels Captain America in to thoroughly kiss in public.

*

When Bucky wakes up the next morning, it’s to a heavy, purring weight on his chest.

“Help,” he wheezes and Montgomery ignores him, continuing to squish his lung. “I’m under attack!”

The cat purrs some more and Bucky closes his eyes again, resigned to his fate but also strangely content. Well that’s odd. He’s never content. It’s his fundamental, inalienable right as a millenial to always be unhappy. In fact, the peace is such an unexpected, odd sensation that he blinks himself fully awake.

He takes stock of himself. He feels warm and happy, his limbs the kind of heavy, lazy exhausted that he hasn’t had the pleasure of feeling in months. He tries to frown and it comes out as a smile. Briefly, he wonders if he’s been taken over by aliens. It’s the only thing that would sense.

It’s only after he hears a light snuffling sound that he realizes that the purring monster on his chest is not the only source of unmitigated warmth.

There’s also a very large and naked body turned on his side, one very large arm flung across Bucky’s torso, holding him in place like an iron vise.

“Oh,” Bucky says, blinking as he finally remembers very many events from the night before, all very pleasing to him.

“Mm,” Steve’s rough morning voice sends a jolt down Bucky’s spine.

“ _Oh_ ,” Bucky says, remembering more.

Bucky had always assumed that the Avengers would be morning people. It makes sense to him that if someone’s job is to save the literal world from evil Disney villains and alien invasions, they would have to wake up pretty early, to get to do all of the things normal people do, like make pancakes and get in a morning workout that definitely does _not_ wake them up or make them feel good, despite what the Big Exercise industry claims.

Anyway, Bucky must be wrong, because his phone says that it is past 10 am and Steve Rogers is still contently sleeping in Bucky’s bed. His assumptions and beliefs are shattered, but Steve opens his eyes and smiles at Bucky, so probably Bucky will survive, if his heart doesn’t give out first.

“Hey,” Steve says, warmly.

“Hey yourself,” Bucky grins. “If you wanted to sleep with me, all you had to do was ask.”

Steve’s mouth twitches up at the corners.

“It was that simple?” he says.

“I’m easy,” Bucky explains. “And you’re hot.”

“Oh,” Steve says, reasonably. “I want to sleep with you.”

“Oh sure, _now_ he says something!” Bucky exclaims.

Steve laughs and leans forward to kiss him. His mouth is hot and scratchy against Bucky’s own. That makes Bucky feel disgusting and fuzzy and he immediately considers demanding that Steve do it again. Instead, Steve grins.

“In all fairness, if we had ever made it more than ten minutes into a date without something happening, I would have before.”

“I can’t believe we’re cursed,” Bucky complains. “Imagine if we weren’t. Imagine if we could just date, like one normal, really hot supersoldier and his normal, extremely even hotter human millennial boyfriend, who never get interrupted by cursed interdimensional beings, and so can have lots of really hot, loud sex for which someone, somewhere will surely file a noise complaint.”

Steve laces their fingers together. It makes Bucky’s heart do unmentionable things, like flip many times.

“That wouldn’t be great for my reputation, but I’m not against it,” Steve says.

There has to be a way, Bucky thinks. There has to be a _loophole_.

“Hm,” he muses out loud. “Maybe...we’re going about it all wrong.”

Steve shifts, which sounds and feels like two enormous boulders crashing together, until his chin is tucked against Bucky’s bare shoulder. His beard feels sensitive against Bucky’s shoulder, which is pink and smarting. His throat is too, for that matter. Also his jaw, his clavicle, two places on his chest, and the inside of his right thigh. Excellent news.

“I’m listening,” Steve says.

His hand is large and hot against Bucky’s hip. He rubs his thumb in a circle around another sensitive spot and Bucky inhales quickly and tries to connect words together before they disappear into his need to absolutely get railed by Captain America at 10:14 am.

“First dates are lame,” Bucky says. “I said that to you. Remember when I said that to you?”

“I remember when you said that to me,” Steve agrees. He presses a scratchy kiss to the side of Bucky’s neck and Bucky’s brain goes squish again.

“Stop distracting me!” Bucky insists. “Okay, I can do this.”

“Do what?” Steve’s laugh is a slow, teasing rumble into Bucky’s collarbone now.

“Make—sentences—” Bucky struggles to make a sentence. “Steven!”

Steve presses another scratchy kiss into Bucky’s skin. Slowly, terribly, he’s shifting some more, the entire weight of him slowly sliding back over Bucky’s body.

“I said I was listening,” Steve laughs and Bucky glares at him. It’s a mean glare. Obviously it’s very serious and will quell Captain America, who is a complete pain in his ass. At least once literally.

Steve, by now, is hovering over Bucky. Montgomery has been displaced, much to his eternal chagrin, but luckily Bucky’s cat has a stuffed panda the size of a small New York apartment to entertain himself with so he hisses a little and moves on. Steve does not. He props himself up by his elbows and looks down on Bucky, who is giving him a stern look.

“Don’t do whatever it is you’re thinking about doing,” Bucky says.

Steve grins and Bucky’s brain tries to melt again. He has a limited amount of time to form the words. This is a race against time and Steve’s not-so-subtly creeping hand.

“Maybe first dates are overrated,” Bucky offers. “Maybe...not everyone needs a first date.”

“Maybe last night can count as our first one,” Steve counters.

Bucky considers this.

“All we did was get drunk and have sex,” he says.

“Sometimes getting drunk and having sex can be a great first date,” Steve says.

Bucky considers this too.

“That’s true,” he says. “You’re making a lot of sense.”

“I’m very smart,” Steve says. “I’m Captain America.”

Bucky makes an indignant, infuriated face that makes Steve laugh. It’s a low, rumbling, pleased laugh, as though he could not be more delighted to make Bucky suffer. The laugh sinks into Bucky’s skin, since they are, in fact, both naked and are, furthermore, pressed chest-to-chest. This too, makes Bucky suffer.

“You’re very annoying,” Bucky says.

Steve ignores him, choosing instead to lower his face and kiss him, slowly, fondly, and Bucky’s brain—or what’s left of it—makes a sort of gloopy sound.

“Does Captain America want to move straight to a second date?” Bucky asks, dazed and dumb.

Steve smiles, all warm sunshine and relief.

“Captain America would love to,” Steve says and covers Bucky’s mouth with another scratchy kiss.

This time, he doesn’t pull away and Bucky’s mind is left to peacefully melt into a consistency neither known or heretofore existing to the mortals who came before him nor, indeed, any mortals who may come after. He snakes his arm around Steve’s extremely muscular back and pulls him closer and they proceed to make out until neither of them can make any intelligible words or, indeed, sounds anymore.

  
They don’t make it out of bed for the rest of the day and as far as second dates go, it’s about the best one Bucky’s ever had.

*

So that’s how Bucky Barnes ends up dating Captain America.

It’s not a romantic story, but it _is_ a dumb one and for someone whose life is narrated by Michael Cera, well, that’s not the worst ending in the world.

If anything, it is exactly what successful millennial love looks like.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**[ Epilogue ]**

> _Hey, you’ve reached the voicemail of Bucky Barnes! Leave a message, because if I don’t know who you are or why you called, you’ll never hear from me again. Thanks! Bye!_

  
“Hello??” Loki yells into the telephone. “Barnes? Bucky? Hello? Can you hear me? I had Thor take me to the top of a tower and I finally have 5G service. Did you know there’s no wi-fi on Asgard? The cell phone reception is terrible and no one has heard of texting or emails or Netflix, to say nothing of the Internet. I think I might literally die of boredom. How many episodes of Real Housewives have I missed? I have 27 voicemails from you. Are you okay? Are you dead? I can’t believe you willingly talked to Lang just because I wasn’t there. You know you can’t actually die of not getting laid, right? That is not medically possible, not that you would ever listen to me—”

There’s a scuffling noise.

“No, what is that? Thor put that down. No, don’t come near me with that! No, I hate that! Get away! _Thor!_ — _Augh! No—!_ ”

A loud shrieking noise and a loud rumble of inappropriate laughter.  
  


> _Thank you. Your message will be sent to Bucky Barnes. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

> _Hey, you’ve reached the voicemail of Bucky Barnes! Leave a message, because if I don’t know who you are or why you called, you’ll never hear from me again. Thanks! Bye!_

  
“What do you _mean_ some kind of a flower dinosaur with a thousand teeth? Is it a flower that looks like a dinosaur or a dinosaur that looks like a flower? Why does it have so many teeth? These are two very different things. Also I don’t understand what that has to do with you still not being laid, you’ll have to be clearer when you leave messages.”

Some kind of rustling noise in the background and the sound goes out as Loki yells indistinctly at someone whose loud, rumbling voice is also indistinct, but makes the line crackle.

“Of all of the good-for-nothing husbands,” Loki muters into the speaker. “You think your life is terrible simply because you and the Good Captain cannot seem to close a sure thing? Do you understand how many feasts they have here? No, you can’t, because you never ask about _my_ life, it’s always about you and your blue balls. Well I’ll tell you—they have a feast. Every. Single night. For everything! For nothing! So far we’ve celebrated Thor’s return, Thor’s marriage, the day that Thor found a grey hair, the day that Odin, his scary Godly Father, adopted his scary twin crows, the day that Odin, my scary Godly Father-in-Law, lost his eye in an intergalactic war or for world knowledge or something, and also the day that Odin, the scary, Godly All-Father, woke up in a good mood, for no reason. I cannot eat one more pheasant. I can’t!”

Some shouting in the background and then Loki’s shriek.

“Is that pheasant? _Get that away from me!—_ ”

> _  
> Thank you. Your message will be sent to Bucky Barnes. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

> _Hey, you’ve reached the voicemail of Bucky Barnes! Leave a message, because if I don’t know who you are or why you called, you’ll never hear from me again. Thanks! Bye!_

  
“How did you even get cursed?” Loki asks. There’s lightning and thunder in the distance and he watches, with idle concern, as the army of Asgard clashes with an army of cold, blue, ugly giants on the literal bridge made of a literal rainbow.

“I can’t even leave you for a handful of months to enjoy wedded bliss. Have you considered just going to Avengers Tower and banging him there? If I can get married the second time I meet a very large and hot blond man, I don’t see why you can’t do the same.”

There’s screeching and clashing in the background and, briefly, Loki sees a blue head explode and blue blood go spraying through the air.

“Ew,” he says. “You’re overthinking this. He’s hot and you’re slutty and that makes it your God-given right to just. Shove him somewhere and. You know. Live out your millenial fantasy dreams. Shove your tongue down his throat. Do that thing with your hand. Get creative! Don’t post on Reddit for relationship advice. I’ll try to send you an email with instructions, but T-Mobile’s data plan “ _doesn’t work in between realms._ ””

He says this last part with air quotations.

Suddenly, the entire sky sets alight with monstrous lightning and there’s the sound of Thor shouting and zapping an entire frost giant army into ice shards.

“Oh, I have to go,” Loki says. “Post-battle sex is—well, a gentleman never tells. But it’s hot. Okay, goodbye.”

> _  
> Thank you. Your message will be sent to Bucky Barnes. To delete this message, press 1. To re-record your message, press 2. To end this call, press star now._

*

> _Hey, you’ve reached the voicemail of Bucky Barnes! Leave a message, because if I don’t know who you are or why you called, you’ll never hear from me again. Thanks! Bye!_

  
A low, shocked silence.

“Oh my god,” Loki says, deeply concerned. “Did you say that you...missed me?”

Scrambling noises in the background.

“Are you all right? Are you dying? If you die, I will kill you. _Stay right where you are, I will be there immediately!_ ”

He jams the star button to end the call.

*

Loki bursts into the throne room, where Thor is drawing on the walls with crayons. Well, he is likely listening to some official Asgardian inter-realm business that will either begin or stop wars on an interdimensional level. It’s the equivalent of drawing with crayons on the walls, probably.

“My beloved!” Thor booms immediately, abandoning his crayons and looking at Loki with a level of love and fondness that is disgusting and inappropriate and, frankly, unbearable. “You have come to take part in Aesir rule at last! I knew you would not disappoint. I have been telling the Council of your great many qualifications. They are quite interested in _data spreadsheets_.”

“No,” Loki says.

Around a very large and regal table sit half a dozen royal councillors who blink at Loki with bemusement.

“Hi,” Loki says to them, shortly. He looks back at Thor. “We have to go.”

“Go?” Thor says. “Go where, my darling? I will go with you to the ends of all realms, of course. I will fly with you to different moons and planets, to worlds that exist and those that do not yet exist. My love, I will take you wherever your heart desires, be it real or false. I will not stop until we find the place you will be happy and then I shall set you down and slowly caress you, as one must his husband.”

Thor stops to take a breath.

“Great,” Loki says, ignoring all of this. “Take me back home. My best friend is a veritable fool and we might have to kill Steve Rogers. It’s all unclear. A curse might be involved.”

“A curse?” Thor says, startled. “That sounds extremely troubling.”

“Exactly,” Loki says. “Do you have your travel cloak?”

“Yes?” Thor says.

He’s in full armor and his billowing red cape. He looks regal and ostentatious, like a very ridiculous, beautiful alien. Loki loves him very much.

“Gross,” he says out loud.

“What?” Thor asks, mildly.

“Anyway,” Loki says and wraps an arm around Thor’s middle. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

“I still do not know what that means,” Thor says, mildly, but he does as he’s told.

He whirls Mjolnir around and around and around his head and with tremendous thunder and unnecessary lightning, and the whole gay rainbow bridge, Thor zaps himself and Loki back to Earth, so that Loki can go help his dumb best friend.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> \+ Thank you to Montgomery the Cat, who belongs to my BFF and who so graciously agreed to appear in this fanfiction in a very critical role:
> 
> \+ Thank you, as ever, to corarochester who lets me shriek at her in DMs any time this universe is involved!! Perhaps I will shriek at you some more in the future!!
> 
> \+ As ever, if there was any part that made you laugh out loud, let me know which!! I like to know that there is at least one (1) person out there, laughing with me as I laugh by myself while staring at my blank Google Doc in the dark.
> 
> \+ If you'd like to share, this fic can be RTed on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/spacerenegades/status/1279524207148367873?s=20) or reblogged on Tumblr [here](https://spacerenegades.tumblr.com/post/622747168282968064/not-another-superhero-first-date)! ♥


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